Slouchy Beanie 1: Taupe Hat

I tried the Lemongrass Slouchy hat pattern again, in a more pleasing color, but I put this aside for a bit while I worked on my son's acorn hat. I wanted a slouchy beanie, and this suffices, but the decreases still throw me, and the top looks just "off" somehow. Still, it slouches and it's warm so it's great for bad hair days. Still Little Bear won't give up the acorn hat, I'm keeping this one. 

METHOD:
Done in LionBrand Wook Ease Thick and Quick yarn in taupe, one skein. From the pattern "Lemongrass Slouchy Hat" on Ravely. Did it on circulars this time instead of dpns, and it's still weird. 

AND WHAT DID WE LEARN?
1. This is a good pattern for stash busting this particular yarn, but I'm not uber crazy about the look of the hat, even if I love the texture.

2. When I read "slouchy," this is not the look I really picture. 

Acorn Costume and Hat

"Make me an acorn costume for Halloween, Mommy!" 

Who can say no to that? I mean, how cute, right? An acorn costume. Now how to go about it...

After three hours wandering around in Joann Fabric, trying to find a way to achieve the "roundness" needed for an acorn but still allow movement and play, I came up with the idea of the sandwich board. It's not perfect, and I'm not sure it's exactly what he had in mind, but after he won "Most Original" at the library costume contest, he was sold. 

The hat actually came first (or the idea for it) since I had been eyeing the Lemongrass hat and wondering what it would look like in the other stash colors I had. I made a taupe one, but that wasn't brown enough (although the texture was perfect for an acorn cap) so I picked up a couple of skeins of a browner variety, knitted an i-cord "stem" and voila. (Little Bear has refused to remove the cap and surrender the hat, so I guess it's his now for good.) 

METHOD:
Done in LionBrand Wool Ease Thick and Quick, from the Lemongrass Slouchy Hat pattern on Ravelry, in a dark brown tweed colorway. One skein. Used it all. 

AND WHAT DID WE LEARN?
1. Kids are cute. 

2. Eleventh hour Halloween costumes are the best. 

3. The entire costume came together with fabric glue, and no sewing machine. I'm amazed. 

Lemongrass Hat and Cowl (Bluprint Class)

The Hat was a project I sort of randomly came across on Ravelry as I was pondering getting back to knitting. (Actually what spawned the renewed interest was cleaning out the fabric closet and realizing I had a lot of yarn I needed to get rid of.) I had purchased a lot of this Wool Ease Thick and Quick, imagining I might someday make these little cardigans, but with that fantasy over, I had to figure out something else to do with them. 

Enter the Lemongrass hat. 

Now to be fair, the color of this yarn alternates between being a rather stylish off-green, like a lightly grilled spear of asparagus, to a true baby-shit green that nobody looks good in. Under store lighting, it's pretty. At home .... yeah, baby poop. 

So I found the pattern and thought why not. The instructions for the decreases are very confusing, and I should have been alerted to the weirdness by the fact that other people were commenting with questions, but I pushed on, thinking I'd figure it out. The main fabric is I think seed stitch, which gives this yarn a great texture, but the decreases at the top look weird and the color is just ... blech. 

So of course I had to make a cowl to match.

Now to be fair, the cowl was the second project from the Bluprint class, and I wanted to at least try it. I had two skeins left of the nasty Lemongrass color, so I made the cowl and it was pretty but gave me claustrophobia when I tried to wear it. So I frogged it, and made one twice as wide, which didn't really work either. Probably one that is about 1.5 skeins would work properly.

METHOD:
Done in LionBrand Wool Ease Thick and Quick Lemongrass (aka Babyshit Green)

AND WHAT DID WE LEARN?
1. This is a horrendous color.

2. Frog what doesn't work, but you can only do it a few times before the yarn becomes worn. 

3. Don't stash yarn. Only buy what you actually have a legit plan for using. 

Practice Mitts (Bluprint Class)

The Great Courses Plus offers other lectures in conjunction with Craftsy/Bluprint, and I thought it was about time to maybe try knitting again, since I really hadn't done anything for a couple of years. 

This was the first project in the Startup Library Knitting class, taught by Susan B. Anderson, "Practice Mitts" which was a good re-immersion.

METHOD:
Done in LionBrand Vanna's Choice leftover yarn from the Traffic Set, worked flat on #7 needles and seamed together. I made the fingers extra long so they could either flip up over the knuckles or be folded back for more access.

1. These were fun, and they ended up being warm enough for me to wear to my crosswalk a few times.

2. I love knitting things for winter while we're still in the middle of summer.

AND WHAT DID WE LEARN?

Yoga Mat Carrier

I started June out beautifully, getting up early to go to a Yoga class on the riverfront. It was a gorgeous day and a great way to start the summer. Everyone around me had snazzy little holders for their yoga mats, so of course I needed one. 

After searching around, I found this pattern, which looked cute:

https://gina-michele.com/2017/05/yoga-mat-strap-free-knitting-pattern-2.html

METHOD:
Using stashed yarn, the LionBrand Suede Ecru color, which I LOVE the feel of, this was simple garter stitch, and I did most of it while Little Bear was at the BioBots programming camp. It was easy, but turned out a little weird, and probably should not have been quite so wide. 

AND WHAT DID WE LEARN?
It's an easy and fun project, but the mesh "bag" style would probably be more useful. Still, I feel very fashionable when I wrap and unwrap my yoga mat at the Y.